Comments on April Existing Home Sales

1) The key for housing - and the overall economy - is new home sales, single family housing starts and overall residential investment.

Overall, this is still a somewhat reasonable level for existing home sales. No worries.

2) Inventory is still low, and was only up 1.7% year-over-year (YoY) in April. This was the ninth consecutive month with a year-over-year increase in inventory, although the YoY increase was smaller in April than in the six previous months.

Click on graph for larger image.

3) Year-to-date sales are down about 4.9% compared to the same period in 2018. On an annual basis, that would put sales around 5.1 million in 2019. Sales slumped at the end of 2018 and in January 2019 due to higher mortgage rates, the stock market selloff, and fears of an economic slowdown (unfounded).

The comparisons will be easier towards the end of the year.

The second graph shows existing home sales Not Seasonally Adjusted (NSA).

Sales NSA in April (455,000, red column) were below sales in April 2018 (460,000, NSA), but sales were higher than in April 2017..